CRANKWORX COLORADOMost people probably didn't know slalom was an event here at crankworx co, but indeed it is. Slopestyle is still the main draw, but there is a downhill, slalom, super d, and other festivities. I must say the turnout is a little smaller than I would have thought for slalom, but there is a world cup going on in Italy this week too, and it is only Thursday. Course here is pretty fun, nothing very technical, but fast, kind of a drag race to the end. Kinda short too, About 20 seconds, but at the end I feel like I'm breathing harder than I should be, damn altitude:) going to be really noticable on Sunday for a 7 min downhill.
Race morning, and as expected after it poured allll night, there are a couple inches of muck sitting as the top layer of dirt. Clouds have dispersed, sun is out, so the soil is slowly transforming. locals claim it drys up faster than you think, but it took awhile, lots of delays to start. We shouldve slept in a bit longer. I woke up all amped to get out there, but it dragged out. Lars and I came prepared with some maxxis medusa mud tires. Super narrow, little spikey, fast rolling, and they were extremely dialled. Don't think many people were that prepared, but with some big $ on the line you gotta have everything covered.
So we all had a lap or 2 max for practice... Quite a few people showed up today and missed practice yesterday, like Rando, Jd, Condro, Jackie h, so with one or two runs, that wouldve been tough. Anywho, they ran that practice straight into open quali, into a minor break, which dragged out. Had a snack, but shouldve had a sandwich or something, cause it was like 2.5 hrs till I got to ride again.
In qualifying, Lars was riding super well, qualified 2nd by only a fraction to Peter hannack. Think logan binggelli wa in there, Brian Buhl, Jason memmelaar, etc. Not sure the order. Jd missed a gate, but he had his shifter zip tied to his frame and the shittiest tire ever for street riding:) he put down a ripper on the one side though, it was kinda impressive for such a squid:) I won ladies followed by Mellisa Buhl, n Jackie.
Pro Racing cut the field to 16 men, and 4 ladies. Quite a few amateurs and some masters filled it out too. The red vs blue course were way off for time, not too even, about 2 sec faster on the red side, so it was a little hard to tell how close the battles were. Announcing was decent, ebbett was insightful, and Brad was his usual Brady self, but just a little off on what was going on, think the differentials and order confuse em a little, called the small finals the finals, who was up on whom, oh well, yada yada, I won. Slalom is so much more fun than 4x, Pure skill no interfearance:)
Course dried out as rounds went on, but people were also clipping gates and getting disqualified like crazy. Lars pretty much handed it away with a massive gap going, then missed a flag, doh! yeti's Sanchez got it pretty easy, but so it goes. Thought Peter and Lars wouldve had a goo battle, but neither of them could get to the finals. Pretty funny too , Brian and michael buell, brothers, met in a round and had a serious buell-off. Younger Brian took it though, and ended up 2nd overall. He was pumped. Jason memmelear took a victory on his xc rig giant trance full shock length. Lucky for him there weren't any steep bits:)
Buhly and I were in the finals again, and after a decent run on red first run, it was my mission to teach that blue side a lesson. There were a few bogs that kinda messed up the smmoth arc in some turns. I put down my best blue run of the weekend, felt awesome and took the victory. Our Transition doubles are riding sooo good, that bike loves to slalom. It also loves to slopestyle as Casey groves is laying it down out there!! Good luck to him and the other transition cronies doing work on the big gaps:)
So that is it for slalom! Good times. I like it a lot because of where I started so many years ago, and how much I struggled to work on turning. Think I've come a long way, and that is the best reward!!
Check out the Transitionbikes.com blog. Lots of photos and content. I didn't bring a computer, just the iPhone. Grammer and spelling are attrocious too, sorry. My final run should be on the blog too if not on crankworxcolorado.com . They had a bunch o cameras filming the event
this rain is making things tough on slopestyle competitors. There is talk of more rain, and people maybe flying home cause of cancelling. Big wooden obsticles make mud very dangerous. We will see...
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